Day 25: Expectations

My husband and I took the first step today in preparing for our reunion. We communicated about our expectations. It sounds simple, but if you don't think to do it, often you both end up disappointed and angry.

I can speak about this confidently because his second deployment, his first with me, we had a few rough moments after he came home. As the deployment wound down, I had started to imagine the joyous reunion, make plans for us and so had he, but we each assumed it would go smoothly.

Without talking to each other about what we expected and planned, our plans conflicted. Our ideas about the reunion and especially the first few days were different. I didn't want to assert my desires over his after he spent a year in war, but it was hard not to let my feelings get hurt or be disappointed when he didn't envision our first few days together the way I had. He knew the year apart had been hard on me, and Chad didn't want to push his agenda, but had things that were important to him.

What we discovered last deployment was that all we needed to do was each talk openly about how we see the reunion and following days or even weeks going. He says what he wants without worrying about me. I say what I want without worrying about what he wants. Then we each can consider the plans and compromise and neither one of us has to give up all of what we want.

We do this usually a couple weeks before his return over email. The first rule is to be open minded when you read the email. Don't take every little word and analyze or twist it. These emails are kind of like the first draft of a story, open to revision. Part of the process is being willing to give in completely to your spouse. Both of us have to be willing to go along with each other's desires. If we start there emotionally, compromising becomes easier and we both get most of what we want.

By talking about what we expect or hope for, we can both envision "worst-case scenarios" in which the other person gets what they want completely and we lose out. But even just thinking about it, makes it more manageable. Then what really happens is usually better than that worst case scenario.

The goal here is to be together with the person you love and enjoy that time together. Both of us want that, what neither of us wants is to argue at all or have disagreements. Some disagreements are just part of being married, but this is one we have learned to head off at the pass by talking about it now instead of waiting to see how things shake out.

It is probably one of the easiest things we can do to make the reunion go more smoothly. Ask him if he wants a big return celebration or just a small get together with a few friends, invite the whole family, or just you and the kids. Find out how he envisions those moments he gets off the big white bus and runs across the field. Decide which things are really so important they are worth fighting for and what things don't really matter that much. I've found that the more we talk about it, the fewer things actually matter and the more we each get to just loving each other. 

Day 39: Can't Tell you

One of the tricks to a marriage surviving a deployment is communication, not letting the year apart become a wall between you. You have to talk to each other and maintain a relationship. It is hard, very hard, especially when most of our conversations involve the words, "I can't tell you . . ." 

Yesterday, we got a few minutes on video chat with my husband. It was great, the baby loves it. But we ran out of things to say to each other. You'd think being so far apart filling the conversations would be easier, but it isn't. The things we might say over dinner each night, seem so trivial and not worth mentioning. Plus, there is additional strangeness knowing that his roommate is overhearing every word of our conversation. 

In fact, he was trying to Skype with a friend back home while we were talking on Gmail chat.  Both of our computers pick up sound to dictate when to receive and when to broadcast. I would cut out on Chad because his computer would be broadcasting Josiah's conversation. And he would cut out on me when the baby was squealing or babbling. It was hard to follow our conversation over his roommate's so we ended up looking at each other and typing. 

But we did a lot of looking at each other with not much to say. So much of what he does is classified or protected due to operational security (OpSec) that he can't tell me what he does day to day. Even details of his day that aren't classified are a part of where he is going and who will be with him, etc. so he can't discuss them with me over the internet or phone lines due to the chances that someone unfriendly might be listening. 

I try to fill the empty air, but the past couple of months have been just me and the baby. I can only tell him about her accomplishments so many times. She is adorable, but he can see that for himself. So we say, "I love you!" over and over. We talk about a few details in our lives that we need to coordinate, and we hope that it's over soon.

It is really hard to stay on the same page, feel like we haven't just missed everything when most of his conversations start with, "I really can't tell you . . ." Even things he could technically talk about, he can't while he has no privacy. It is hard for him to constantly feel like he is being watched or overheard. And he has to keep up a veneer over himself while in the trenches. 

A marriage can survive, but it is serious work to catch up on each other. I can't wait to get us a couple of margaritas and spend a night on the couch just talking. I am counting down the days. 

Day 231: Getting along

One of the many issues that complicate life for the military couple is how to communicate when separated. My husband and I have gotten much better at it. He has taught me to relax more. I (yes, MiL, I used to be worse) have learned to let things go. For example, someone opened a fraudulent credit card in my husband's name years ago. The creditors won't talk to me because they say my JAG created POA (power of attorney) isn't valid. In the past, I would have panicked and raced around to get this taken care of. Now, I realize that I've done what I can, if they don't want to work with me, then they can wait until he comes home. And I've learned that realistically, if worst comes to worst, they might put a negative note in his credit report, but there is a statute of limitations on how long something can be held against you, so whatever. If I find time to take care of it, great, but I refuse to stress about it or drive him crazy trying to deal from over there.

One thing we haven't mastered is how not to get so far into our own heads that we forget to bring along our partner. I have been spending this entire deployment scraping our money together so that we can be completely debt free and have a good savings account when he comes home. I have been doing this in the hopes that I can stay home with my daughter for a few years at least. Soon enough she will be in the hands of who knows whom and we will have to deal with both negative and positive learning experiences, but I really want her to love reading and learning from the beginning. I know I can provide her with that environment or at least do a better job than daycare teachers of whom some are barely out of high school and pretty uneducated. (Private RANT here - if we paid TEACHERS from 0-college what giving a child a good background is worth, we would draw and keep more people in the field) Even in our private school/daycare, signs are misspelled, rules are enforced that are not in the best interest of the children, the menu is full of white potatoes, simple carbohydrates, etc.  I just hate that I could be giving her a much more loving, educational environment here at home. Just two weeks at home and she is crawling better, pulling up to stand, kneeling, talking more and in general just making a lot of major leaps. I can see that my staying home would give her a significant advantage in the future.

My husband has been crafting a different future with different priorities. He doesn't want to be broke. If I stay home, we're going to be struggling unless I find something I can do from home, but I think living lean a few years is worth it. I thought we were on the same page until he emails me about buying a house. I got stuck in my mortgage in Illinois when we were first married. It was a constant source of worry and concern. I never knew if I was going to get a payment each month from my renter or if something would happen to the house and I would have to fix it, from several states away. I lost money on the house. I did get a tax break on my mortgage each year, but essentially I had a big headache, several second mortgages and refi's to remodel the 150 year old house and walked away pretty much even, except for the loss of the six months or so of rent my renter skipped out on and the headaches of worry over the bills. I don't want to buy again until we are sure we're settling for a long stretch.

The likelihood of us staying here permanently is slim. We are most likely going to be moving in a 1 1/2  years or so for my husband's career progression. We may come back here, but who knows. We would have to house shop and move into somewhere new only to PCS in 6-12 months? And in this market, while we could possibly afford more home than we used to for the same price and my current income would count toward purchasing, I am afraid if we move that we'd end up with two payments on one income. I was very lucky and had this job before we moved. I may not be so lucky in our next PCS. Getting stuck with two payments on one income could make us homeless very quickly.

The tax breaks for mortgages are good. Owning a home is a good investment. The sooner we start paying on a mortgage, the sooner it is paid off. Renting is temporary and your payments are just paying off someone else's investment. Chad has some good points. The hard part here is that we both do. As reasonable adults, trying to plan for a happy future together, we both have valid points of view, and both views have downsides. We're older for new parents and my taking time off of work to be Lil Bit's teacher, would cut into any retirement or college fund plans significantly. This is one of those things that it is hard not to argue about.

We used to send gigantic emails back and forth, and ended up angry, hurt, frustrated. Mostly because you can't read the tone of voice in an email and you can't explain something that might have been misinterpreted. I don't know what we will decide. I don't know how we will handle not agreeing. I do know that not being able to talk it out, discuss it in person or even by phone is really hard. It is one of the trickiest parts to being separated. We kind of have to let an issue sit for awhile, until we get a chance to discuss it over the phone. That takes a lot of maturity to have something that really matters to you and be able to set it aside.

We've managed to make it through this deployment only having one disagreement so far and it was minor a few weeks into his absence. We quickly realized we needed to find a way to talk to each other and we solved it, but nothing has really come up. I guess we'll have to wait to see what we do. As long as we act like we love each other and are a team rather than opposing entities, we should get along just fine.